Multilateral regulation
The OECD guidelines for multi-national enterprises: an evolving legal status
Can states prevent multinational enterprises from breeching guidelines?
Authors:
Y. Queinnec
Publisher:
Sherpa, 2007
This paper provides an overview of the growing sphere of influence of multinational enterprises (MNEs). It aims to open up avenues which will enable the influence of the current framework of positive law on MNEs to be strengthened and to consider international customary law that could enable the guidelines to find a place within hard-law institutions.
Three factors are argued to have increased the MNEs' sphere of influence:
- home states on their own have insufficient influence for apprehending bad practices perpetrated by their national companies' subsidiaries abroad
- the international community has no means up to now to efficiently apprehend violations of human rights and environmental damages caused by multinationals
- multinationals have been more and more involved in issues of general interest, namely through the development of Public Private Partnerships (PPP). This trend results largely from the development of investment regulations easing Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) and promotion of PPP by international financial institutions, which has led to the development of more rights than obligations for multinationals.
The authors conclude that states are failing in their obligations as set out in the procedural guidance and enterprises continue to breach the guidelines. However, the obstacles encountered do not detract from the fact that they are a valuable instrument to help fill the current vacuum surrounding the legal apprehension of acts by multinational enterprises.
